Yesterday I mentioned that October makes me nostalgic for travel. Here's why: Four years ago today, I took my very first trip beyond the borders of any country that isn't a signatory of NAFTA.
I went to London, by myself, because for whatever snotty reason I felt bad that at the ancient age of 25 I hadn't been overseas yet.
Here's what I wrote in my journal for that day:
"Fairly well crippled by getting no sleep over the past three days. Slept about three hours on the plane, which is more than I expected. Ran around Heathrow getting Underground pass, then took the Express to Paddington. Couldn't find a cab there, duh, so took the tube to Green Park. It's about three block to the hotel. The room is small, as I expected, but comfy. Went to Buckingham Palace - nice house the Queen's got. She was home, the flag was up. I walked all the way around it and stopped by the gift shop. I got postcards and a Queen Mum votive candle for Bridget's mom and a Beefeater figurine for Dad. Was wiped out, kind of took a nap against my will and ate dinner at the hotel. Pasta with alfredo - it was fine. Went walking around Mayfair after. It's just like the Gold Coast in Chicago. Going to doze and watch weird British TV for the rest of the night."
Reading that now - I like the Chicago reference. I was just back in Chicago over Labor Day weekend, and I think what triggered the comparison in London was the actual smell of the city. Something about an urban center being right on the water.
Saturday, October 02, 2004
Friday, October 01, 2004
Orbitz stalking
This blog is dedicated to all of us who spend part of our workdays on Orbitz to answer pressing questions like: "Hey, if I flew to Ulaanbaatar tomorrow, how much would it cost and could I use Singapore Airlines to go through Hong Kong?"
(Answer: $2012. United 978 out of LAX to SFO. Asiana 6615 from SFO to Seoul. Korean 867 from Seoul to Ulaanbaatar. Total travel time? 33 hours and 5 minutes. Singapore does go to Hong Kong, but you have to go through Taipei - or, you know, Singapore - so things get kind of messy.)
The creation of this is spurred by a couple things: I've done a lot of traveling in October and was nostalgic, so I thought I'd put some of my old journals online over the next few days. We're also going on a trip to Kauai in a couple weeks and I figured I would try to blog from there instead of keeping a pen and paper travel journal. (I have a housesitter who is a hearty user of PCP and who has a Rottweiler named Styx that he has trained to use pepper spray. Don't even try to break into my house, Internet people.)
That, and several of my friends have traveled to exceedingly cool places and I'd like them to contribute when they go abroad.
And there's travel books to be discussed, photos to share, restaurants to recommend - stay tuned!
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